7 ms·

Pioneer: a game of lonely space adventure

184 points by mabynogy 9y ago

EpicEng 9y ago
ok... don't use a new URL for each image in your slideshow please. You're just breaking browser navigation. On topic: cool idea, but heard it before. The amount of effort it would take to _truly_ pull this off is just enormous. I wish them the best, but I've been burned before (you know who you are... Sean.)
- applecrazy 9y ago
  To be fair, the game you referenced improved with several free updates, not to mention an extensive ARG that hyped up the first anniversary update, essentially delivering the game that was expected on launch day. I am of the opinion that it was Sony's fault for rushing development of an indie game (the studio had 10 ppl max working on the game at any given time).
  - EpicEng 9y ago
    > To be fair, the game you referenced improved with several free updates To be fair, it _still_ doesn't have the totality of features they promised at launch, even with all of those updates, and Sean blatantly lied while promoting the thing right up to launch day. "Fair" is the reception they got. Besides, the game is still boring.
    - Will_Parker 9y ago
      (I'll take your point.)
      - EpicEng 9y ago
        That is not at all what happened. Sean was on television and streams telling people that NMS contained features which simply didn't exist only days/weeks prior to release. No one knew it was BS until they bought the game.
  - QAPereo 9y ago
    I’ll be as fair as his marketing campaign, how about that?
  - dkersten 9y ago
    I tried it after the latest update and the game is still very very shallow and repetitive and still nowhere near what it promised to be from pre-release interviews. Sure, it technically has all the features on paper, but they're (in my opinion, at least) incredibly shallow and dull. Lots (and lots and lots) of breadth and no depth.
- Kiro 9y ago
  Yeah, the immensely stupid slideshow URL thing alone makes me not want to try this game.
duck 9y ago
Ah, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frontier:_Elite_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frontier:_Elite_II was a great game... one of many that I've forgotten about, so it is nice to see a reminder like this.
jmatthews 9y ago
Off topic but your website needs serious work. Some type of mobile friendly format and some type of lightbox for your images. I promote and curate indie game projects and couldn't get past the front page of your site.
- trynewideas 9y ago
  Website looks open-source too, FWIW. https://github.com/pioneerspacesim/pioneer-web https://github.com/pioneerspacesim/pioneer-web
- khedoros1 9y ago
  I was just thinking that it had a nice, kind classic feel. I guess I can see why it might be annoying on mobile, though.
  - Kiro 9y ago
    It's a complete disaster. If this is what HN brutalists, who normally complains about animations and modern UI, think is a good site I rest my case.
    - khedoros1 9y ago
      Reading other parts of the thread, people are describing issues that I didn't experience at all while browsing the site. No issues with broken back button, changing URL for each picture, etc. It's behaving differently at work on FF57+Win7 than it did at home on FF57+Win10 and FF57+Linux though, so I've got to assume it's some kind of browser compatibility issue.
    - Sylos 9y ago
      No one said that it's going to win a prize, but it's not like it's particularly terrible either. Also, it's the webpage of a game. You go to the webpage, you download it, and then you're probably not gonna see the webpage again for a few months. It's also free. If you can't get past some flaws in the webpage to grab your free copy, frankly just bugger off.
  - 9y ago
shmerl 9y ago
/home/your_username/.pioneer Hm. They'd better use XDG base directory spec.
kazagistar 9y ago
Noctis 4 was a game I played extensively when I was a bit younger. No Mans Sky is one I thoroughly enjoyed for the same reasons more recently, and still pick up everyone once in a while. Unfortunately, that means that unless a game brings something new to the table, the "market is saturated" from my perspective, and the site provides very little to go on.
shrimp_emoji 9y ago
So this is to Elite Dangerous what FreeOrion is to Stellaris?
- astrobe_ 9y ago
  Oolite is a closer match for Elite Dangerous. Also FOSS and 500+ mods available. One of the devs made a one-click install for Windows featuring a selection of the main eye-candy mods but I'm on mobile now; will provide the link later. Oolite is more like the original Elite while Pioneer is more like Frontier. Although I'm a former flightsim player who likes "realism", I find Oolite and its non-newtonian physics more enjoyable because you don't spend your time on autopilot and time acceleration. Space is just so big that, in a way, it disolves agency so it's better IMO to compromise and switch to a "believable" rather than "realistic" universe.
  - astrobe_ 9y ago
    The link to the "demo" distribution is here: http://www.aegidian.org/bb/viewtopic.php?f=8&p=260064#p260064 http://www.aegidian.org/bb/viewtopic.php?f=8&p=260064#p26006... Or else the official distribution can be found here: http://www.oolite.org/ http://www.oolite.org/ Also, the mods are scripted with Javascript (including most of the AI for NPCs). The API is documented here: http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Scripting_Oolite_with_JavaScript http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Scripting_Oolite_with_JavaS...
- RangerScience 9y ago
  Props for the reference, but no; Stellaris is built around real-time and politics (I mean just look at Paradox's other games!), and generally doesn't have "win" condition. There's an analogy to be made in FOSS/non-FOSS, but not when considering gameplay and feel. FreeOrion is related to Master of Orion; and actually, if you want a "modern" remake that really does a good job of capturing that feel, take a look at http://stars-in-shadow.com/ http://stars-in-shadow.com/ Actually, SIS is the only recent game that reminds of FreeOrion/MOO. Everything else has notable departures from that 4x model - Endless Space has built in story lines, Sword of the Stars has incredibly different species, etc. (PS - Stellaris is super rad and I've sunk far too much time into it)
gabrielcsapo 9y ago
This looks awesome! The graphics remind me of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_Legacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_Legacy which was one of my favorite games!
montecarl 9y ago
Just reading the discription of this game and it reminds me of Escape Velocity Nova[1]. I spent a long time playing this game in high school. It felt so epic in its scope at the time. I have no idea how popular it was. Did anyone else play this? [1] https://www.ambrosiasw.com/games/evn/ https://www.ambrosiasw.com/games/evn/
- freeqaz 9y ago
  Dude... I played every story line and eventually wrote some mods. This game is likely the reason I'm a dev today! Definitely check out Endless Sky for a modern engine! https://endless-sky.github.io https://endless-sky.github.io
  - montecarl 9y ago
    What! There is a modern engine!? This is news to me. I think I know what I am doing this weekend. P.S. Stuff like this is why I really enjoy HN. I feel like it is full of people who have had similar life experiences as mine. Almost none of my current friends are real computer nerds, which I don't mind at all, but it is nice to have a community of like minded people.
    - ethbro 9y ago
      Ambrosia's Escape Velocity (pre-Nova, pre-Override), coupled with Bungie's then Mac-only Pathways into Darkness & Marathon, fell into the category of "games I could play in the school's Mac-only computer lab." Pathways into Darkness is particularly cool. From memory, it actually used the filesystem as an inventory manager.
  - kosinus 9y ago
    Oooh, I didn't know about this. There's also Naev: http://blog.naev.org/ http://blog.naev.org/
  - flashman 9y ago
    Currently trying to capture robot-controlled ships to replace my human-crewed ships, to bring down my expenditure on crew salaries. If I might digress for a minute, Endless Sky inherits Escape Velocity's very 20th-century American approach to economics and labour. The primary money-making activities are commodities arbitrage and freelance gigs (cargo and passenger transport). Crews are paid a fixed rate and can be sent to their deaths in a boarding party without mutinous consequences. There is no concept of anyone's welfare besides the player-captain. Where's the fully automated luxury gay space communism? It suffers from a slight lack of imagination.
wiz21c 9y ago
For those who wonder, the great music is by Wagner (Siegried's march) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uka8ykFDw2U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uka8ykFDw2U This was used with great effect in the movie Excalibur by John Boorman
acavalcante80 9y ago
Think about accept Bitcoins as donation. Thanks for creating games for Linux!
- carlosgj94 9y ago
  I thought the same! I was like: Cool I will them send some satoshi, but then... :(
  - laarmen 9y ago
    While much appreciated, we don't need money so much as helping hands ;-)
JepZ 9y ago
One of my favorite space simulators was Netwars by Novell (3D, multiplayer, from 1993): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a30Fwd-gisI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a30Fwd-gisI

184 points by mabynogy 9y ago

ok... don't use a new URL for each image in your slideshow please. You're just breaking browser navigation. On topic: cool idea, but heard it before. The amount of effort it would take to _truly_ pull this off is just enormous. I wish them the best, but I've been burned before (you know who you are... Sean.)

applecrazy 9y ago
To be fair, the game you referenced improved with several free updates, not to mention an extensive ARG that hyped up the first anniversary update, essentially delivering the game that was expected on launch day. I am of the opinion that it was Sony's fault for rushing development of an indie game (the studio had 10 ppl max working on the game at any given time).
- EpicEng 9y ago
  > To be fair, the game you referenced improved with several free updates To be fair, it _still_ doesn't have the totality of features they promised at launch, even with all of those updates, and Sean blatantly lied while promoting the thing right up to launch day. "Fair" is the reception they got. Besides, the game is still boring.
  - Will_Parker 9y ago
    (I'll take your point.)
    - EpicEng 9y ago
      That is not at all what happened. Sean was on television and streams telling people that NMS contained features which simply didn't exist only days/weeks prior to release. No one knew it was BS until they bought the game.
- QAPereo 9y ago
  I’ll be as fair as his marketing campaign, how about that?
- dkersten 9y ago
  I tried it after the latest update and the game is still very very shallow and repetitive and still nowhere near what it promised to be from pre-release interviews. Sure, it technically has all the features on paper, but they're (in my opinion, at least) incredibly shallow and dull. Lots (and lots and lots) of breadth and no depth.
Kiro 9y ago
Yeah, the immensely stupid slideshow URL thing alone makes me not want to try this game.

duck 9y ago

Ah, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frontier:_Elite_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frontier:_Elite_II was a great game... one of many that I've forgotten about, so it is nice to see a reminder like this.

jmatthews 9y ago

Off topic but your website needs serious work. Some type of mobile friendly format and some type of lightbox for your images. I promote and curate indie game projects and couldn't get past the front page of your site.

trynewideas 9y ago
Website looks open-source too, FWIW. https://github.com/pioneerspacesim/pioneer-web https://github.com/pioneerspacesim/pioneer-web
khedoros1 9y ago
I was just thinking that it had a nice, kind classic feel. I guess I can see why it might be annoying on mobile, though.
- Kiro 9y ago
  It's a complete disaster. If this is what HN brutalists, who normally complains about animations and modern UI, think is a good site I rest my case.
  - khedoros1 9y ago
    Reading other parts of the thread, people are describing issues that I didn't experience at all while browsing the site. No issues with broken back button, changing URL for each picture, etc. It's behaving differently at work on FF57+Win7 than it did at home on FF57+Win10 and FF57+Linux though, so I've got to assume it's some kind of browser compatibility issue.
  - Sylos 9y ago
    No one said that it's going to win a prize, but it's not like it's particularly terrible either. Also, it's the webpage of a game. You go to the webpage, you download it, and then you're probably not gonna see the webpage again for a few months. It's also free. If you can't get past some flaws in the webpage to grab your free copy, frankly just bugger off.
- 9y ago

shmerl 9y ago

/home/your_username/.pioneer Hm. They'd better use XDG base directory spec.

kazagistar 9y ago

Noctis 4 was a game I played extensively when I was a bit younger. No Mans Sky is one I thoroughly enjoyed for the same reasons more recently, and still pick up everyone once in a while. Unfortunately, that means that unless a game brings something new to the table, the "market is saturated" from my perspective, and the site provides very little to go on.

shrimp_emoji 9y ago

So this is to Elite Dangerous what FreeOrion is to Stellaris?

astrobe_ 9y ago
Oolite is a closer match for Elite Dangerous. Also FOSS and 500+ mods available. One of the devs made a one-click install for Windows featuring a selection of the main eye-candy mods but I'm on mobile now; will provide the link later. Oolite is more like the original Elite while Pioneer is more like Frontier. Although I'm a former flightsim player who likes "realism", I find Oolite and its non-newtonian physics more enjoyable because you don't spend your time on autopilot and time acceleration. Space is just so big that, in a way, it disolves agency so it's better IMO to compromise and switch to a "believable" rather than "realistic" universe.
- astrobe_ 9y ago
  The link to the "demo" distribution is here: http://www.aegidian.org/bb/viewtopic.php?f=8&p=260064#p260064 http://www.aegidian.org/bb/viewtopic.php?f=8&p=260064#p26006... Or else the official distribution can be found here: http://www.oolite.org/ http://www.oolite.org/ Also, the mods are scripted with Javascript (including most of the AI for NPCs). The API is documented here: http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Scripting_Oolite_with_JavaScript http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Scripting_Oolite_with_JavaS...
RangerScience 9y ago
Props for the reference, but no; Stellaris is built around real-time and politics (I mean just look at Paradox's other games!), and generally doesn't have "win" condition. There's an analogy to be made in FOSS/non-FOSS, but not when considering gameplay and feel. FreeOrion is related to Master of Orion; and actually, if you want a "modern" remake that really does a good job of capturing that feel, take a look at http://stars-in-shadow.com/ http://stars-in-shadow.com/ Actually, SIS is the only recent game that reminds of FreeOrion/MOO. Everything else has notable departures from that 4x model - Endless Space has built in story lines, Sword of the Stars has incredibly different species, etc. (PS - Stellaris is super rad and I've sunk far too much time into it)

gabrielcsapo 9y ago

This looks awesome! The graphics remind me of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_Legacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_Legacy which was one of my favorite games!

montecarl 9y ago

Just reading the discription of this game and it reminds me of Escape Velocity Nova[1]. I spent a long time playing this game in high school. It felt so epic in its scope at the time. I have no idea how popular it was. Did anyone else play this? [1] https://www.ambrosiasw.com/games/evn/ https://www.ambrosiasw.com/games/evn/

freeqaz 9y ago
Dude... I played every story line and eventually wrote some mods. This game is likely the reason I'm a dev today! Definitely check out Endless Sky for a modern engine! https://endless-sky.github.io https://endless-sky.github.io
- montecarl 9y ago
  What! There is a modern engine!? This is news to me. I think I know what I am doing this weekend. P.S. Stuff like this is why I really enjoy HN. I feel like it is full of people who have had similar life experiences as mine. Almost none of my current friends are real computer nerds, which I don't mind at all, but it is nice to have a community of like minded people.
  - ethbro 9y ago
    Ambrosia's Escape Velocity (pre-Nova, pre-Override), coupled with Bungie's then Mac-only Pathways into Darkness & Marathon, fell into the category of "games I could play in the school's Mac-only computer lab." Pathways into Darkness is particularly cool. From memory, it actually used the filesystem as an inventory manager.
- kosinus 9y ago
  Oooh, I didn't know about this. There's also Naev: http://blog.naev.org/ http://blog.naev.org/
- flashman 9y ago
  Currently trying to capture robot-controlled ships to replace my human-crewed ships, to bring down my expenditure on crew salaries. If I might digress for a minute, Endless Sky inherits Escape Velocity's very 20th-century American approach to economics and labour. The primary money-making activities are commodities arbitrage and freelance gigs (cargo and passenger transport). Crews are paid a fixed rate and can be sent to their deaths in a boarding party without mutinous consequences. There is no concept of anyone's welfare besides the player-captain. Where's the fully automated luxury gay space communism? It suffers from a slight lack of imagination.

wiz21c 9y ago

For those who wonder, the great music is by Wagner (Siegried's march) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uka8ykFDw2U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uka8ykFDw2U This was used with great effect in the movie Excalibur by John Boorman

acavalcante80 9y ago

Think about accept Bitcoins as donation. Thanks for creating games for Linux!

carlosgj94 9y ago
I thought the same! I was like: Cool I will them send some satoshi, but then... :(
- laarmen 9y ago
  While much appreciated, we don't need money so much as helping hands ;-)

JepZ 9y ago

One of my favorite space simulators was Netwars by Novell (3D, multiplayer, from 1993): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a30Fwd-gisI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a30Fwd-gisI